If you haven't been paying attention to the ever-growing number of stories about the extent to which the (our?) government is watching us, please read the story linked above.

The surveillance state is worse than most people think and know, it's not slowing down, and it's not going away. The Fourth Amendment's teeth have been kicked down the Constitution's throat, and the First Amendment is under attack by a government that has fallen in love with the idea that the more they know about us, and the less we know about them, the better.

The government, under the guise of "national security," watches everything we say and do on the internet—despite righteous denials that only terrorists need to worry—but as as this story shows, the surveillance state isn't particularly good at connecting the dots. Any one of us could be imprisoned any day under the flimsiest of excuses—evidence be damned.

And please remember that ultimately, our elected officials are enabling the surveillance state. The next time one of yours holds a town hall meeting, do some homework, play the gadfly, and put her or him on the spot.

On the album he made while he was dying of cancer, The Wind, Zevon recorded a song with Bruce Springsteen called "Disorder in the House," and one of the verses was "It's the land of the brave/and the home of the free/and the less you know, the better off you'll be." And this was in 2003.

Man, that vote was a softball right over the heart of the plate, Carole, but the OTH's political reporter seemed to either be ignorant or apathetic about Reed's position. Used to be a managing editor would catch stuff like that; instead, he or his proxies round up all of the political press releases and print them verbatim all at once on the commentary page under the guise of a "Political Watch."

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Nota bene: “Fear has governed my life, if I think about it. ... I always feel like I’m not good enough for some reason. I wish that wasn’t the case, but left to my own devices, that voice starts speaking up.” – Trent Reznor

“I hate to say this, but not many people care what you do. They care about what you do as much as you care about what they do. Think about it. Just exactly that much. You are not the center of the universe.” — Laurie Anderson

"The path's not yours till you've gone it alone a time." – William Carlos Williams

“Filling this empty space constitutes my identity.” – Twyla Tharp

"My definition of peace is having no noise in my head." – Eric Clapton

"The wreckage of the sky serves to confirm us in delicious error." – John Ashbery

"We are all here by the grace of the big bang. We are all literally the stuff of the stars." – Dwight Owsley

"It is only with the heart that one can see right; what is essential is invisible to the eye." — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"Forget about being a perfectionist, because entropy always wins out in the end." – Darren Kaufman.

"Impermanence. Impermanence. Impermanence." – Garry Shandling

"Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; the only earthly certainty is oblivion." – Mark Twain

"There is no realm wherein we have the truth." – Gordon Lish

"Actual life is full of false clues and sign-posts that lead nowhere." – E.M. Forster

“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe." – Frank Zappa

“I try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.” – Elmore Leonard